I will participate in this year’s Society for Social Studies of Science Annual Conference in Sydney (4SSydney) this August. I’ll be sharing and discussing my work Technology in a shared home as part of this year’s Making and Doing session.

4S is a an international society that brings together researchers and practitioners of the interdisciplinary field Social Studies of Science and Technologies (often referred to as STS). Broadly speaking, STS researchers study the social context of technological systems and scientific production, which themselves are often thought of as operating seperate from such social contexts, or,  more generally, anything that touches on the realm of humanities.

Each year, the 4S Making and Doing sessions take a unique place within the conference program. They give participants the opportunity to share “on-the-ground practices and innovations in scholarly knowledge work in a range of formats extending beyond academic papers or books”.
My work will be part of the Methods Practices panel. Along with a diverse group of practitioners and researchers, I’ll be contributing to a broader reflection on experimental methods practices in science and technology research.

My contribution touches on the idea of a ‘smart home’ and explores through a short digital ethnography what this technology means and does in a very specific context of a share house. The work takes the form of a website where I present the outcomes of this ethnography through only a few images and hyperlinks. My presentation at the conference will explore new modes of ethnographic representation and discuss ways of producing and experimenting with non-linear narratives.
The 4S conference website includes a full abstract of my submission and a full list of submissions to the Methods Practices panel.

4SSydney will take place from August 29 to September 1 at the Sydney International Convention Centre (ICC) and Powerhouse Museum.